Nadine Coyle's EP 'Nadine' Is Unabashed British Pop

By making new music in Girls Aloud's mould, the group's best vocalist turns in a pretty impressive four tracks.

In many ways, Nadine Coyle out of Girls Aloud is an amazing British popstar: properly good singer, great mythology (all the best popstars come out of a successful group) and audacious as fuck, to the extent that she recently announced a tour where she will, according to the press release, "be performing the greatest hits of Girls Aloud solo." Iconic is an overused word these days, but if this isn't its dictionary definition, then I'll be damned.

Today, she's also released a four-track EP which mostly just sounds like Girls Aloud songs (a good thing), basically because they're all produced by pop hitmakers Xenomania, who were behind most of Girls Aloud's most enduring hits. It's really quite good. Keeping to the Girls Aloud sound is a smart call – as Nadine used to take lead vocals anyway, it's a world she and her propensity for ad-libbing are comfortable in. First track "Girls on Fire" has a very 'Facebook-album-entitled-Girls-Night-Out-Birmingham-Broad-Street-2018' feel, which, for me, only adds to its appeal; "September Song" is extremely radio-friendly and will almost definitely be on the soundtrack of this year's Love Island, and "Something In Your Bones" is the banger of the bunch with its unexpected 80s-inflected electric guitars and fun chorus.

I didn't expect to like this EP so much, but because it hasn't bowed to recent trends (there's a nod to tropical house on "September Song" but that's kind of it), and has also kept to the Girls Aloud formula of relative timelessness, it works. These are four solid songs which would have stood up at the group's peak, and which stand up now – and honestly they're a bit better than what a lot of more 'current' artists are making. Fair play, Nadine.